CloudKid Says Goodbye

In 2009 when we started CloudKid, we set out to create an artist-driven studio that took risks, collaborated with top talent, and found the sweet spot where technology meets creative. Above all, we wanted freedom to work on internal projects that inspired us and challenged us to grow, even in the thick of client productions. Our initial team was small, dedicated and very passionate about children’s media.

Fast-forward six years, we fulfilled that vision and achieved many more successes – we were nominated for four Emmy awards, built an amazing team and network of artists and collaborators from all over the world, partnered with the top children’s media companies, landed a TV development deal, and even generated $1.6 million revenue in 2015. And while CloudKid’s run has been impressive, our growth has required us to focus exclusively on a myriad of client projects to sustain the studio.

Over the last year, it became apparent that we’ve veered from our original vision and goals, and running a service-based studio was not sustainable for us or our employees. Recently, a friend told us “enough is a feast” and we could relate. We live in a bigger-is-better culture, and we’re told to keep going, keep building, keep making, but to what extent? With so many other studios generating a dizzying amount of kids content for the same platforms, we asked ourself if anyone (other than our clients or employees) would notice if CloudKid ceased to exist. The answer was no. We have made the very tough decision to walk away from CloudKid while we’re on top.

While the decision is a bittersweet one, we’re extremely excited to announce we have accepted an offer to join social robotics startup, Jibo. Jibo has the potential to positively transform our relationship to technology in the home, classroom and beyond, and for that reason we feel like it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. Moreover, Jibo is a perfect fit for our team: It enables us to explore innovative ways of telling stories and building experiences no one has seen; represents a fun and thrilling creative and technical challenge; and gives us the opportunity to work with literally some of the smartest people in the world. Most of all, we’ll be building a fucking robot! 

Over the next two months, we will be fulfilling all our existing commitments to our wonderful clients and contractors, end on a high note, and make the transition to Jibo.

 

Shout-outs!

Several years ago after moving into our current space, CloudKid began a weekly tradition of shout-outs during our Friday team lunch. This popcorn-style sharing organically began as a way to acknowledge the hard work between peers that often went unmentioned in the flurry of production. The generosity that CloudKids showed each other became one of our most successful achievements. In this tradition, we’d like to give some final shout-outs to those individuals and organizations that supported us creatively, professionally and personally.

First, to our wonderful clients: you paid our bills, kept us fed, challenged us, and enabled us to do what we love for a living. A “front hug” shout-out goes to Houghton Mifflin, Random House, WGBH, Sesame Workshop, Fred Rogers Company, Spiffy Pictures, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Scholastic, PBS KIDS, Hasbro, Sprout, 9ate7 Productions, and Romotive.

Second, to our amazing friends at PBS: you have inspired us to do some of our best work, you’ve allowed us to take risks making games and producing animation, and to help define new formats for kids. Without your support, CloudKid would not have existed or flourished. For that, we will always be indebted to the power of public media. An “ugga mugga” shout-out goes to Linda Simensky, Sara Dewitt, David Lowenstein, Jen Rodriguez, Karin Jue, Jer Roberts, Aaron Morris, Shannon Bishop and Chris Bishop.

To all those who provided these humble and eager art school graduates with business advice and helped us navigate the ins-and-outs of running a business: A “Warren Buffett” shout-out goes to Bill Shribman, Nancy Kay, Steve Schlafman, Andrew Goloboy, Laurie Megery, Jay Francis, Kevin Morrison, Scott Scornvacco, and Scott Nash.

To our network of creative offsite collaborators: you’ve helped us pull off projects intended for industry titans and wouldn’t have been able to do it without you. You trusted us with your creations and made our jobs so much easier. A “brotha from anotha motha” shout-out goes to Adam Shonkoff, Daniel Koren, Joe Gaudet, Joe Pleiman, Brian Smith, Dan Flynn, Jon Renoni, Isaac Orloff, John Loren, Geoff Marian, Allison Craig, Patt Kelley, and Louie Zong.

A “tear-soaked” shout-out goes out to each and every CloudKid, no matter where you are today. You’ve been like family and have made this journey all worth it. You took enormous risks and believed in what we were doing. Your creative passion and enthusiasm inspired us all and made everything we did better. In particular, we’d like to give Mike Annear and Kendra Mattozzi a special “poo on the wall” shout-out for being with us since day one. These two took the biggest leap of faith and for that we are eternally grateful.

Last but not least, a “home is where the heart is” shout-out goes to our families, partners, roommates, friends, and pets who put up with the ebbs and flows of running CloudKid. You kept us grounded and supported us unconditionally through the challenging times and cheered us on during the exciting ones.

 

Thirteen years ago, we met in the MassArt café and decided to collaborate on a small project. That small project became the genesis of a friendship and CloudKid. Just as the creative process brought us together, it has connected us with so many amazingly kind, thoughtful, and creative people over the last six years. And while CloudKid will fade, these friendships will remain for the rest of our lives. So, this isn’t goodbye, it’s catch you on the flip side.

– Dave and Matt

Dinosaur Day Care

The CloudKid crew is bubbling with excitement over the launch of our latest project with Sesame Workshop: Ernie’s Dinosaur Day Care! Dinosaurs are so in right now, (thanks in part to Jurassic World), and this mobile-friendly game takes you straight into the prehistoric lands of these friendly giants. Join Ernie as he imagines going back in time to take care of dinosaurs in his very own day care, and help him to feed the dinosaurs, stomp with them in the mud, wash them up until they’re squeaky clean, jump rope, and even tuck them into bed! There are five different dinosaurs and five activities, with unlimited possibilities for fun and engaging play. Head over to the Sesame Street website and check it out!

Peg + Cat Emmy Nomination!

High five! Last week CloudKid was notified that we have been nominated for a 2015 Daytime Emmy in the Outstanding New Approaches – Enhancement To a Daytime Program or Series category for our work on Peg + Cat. While we have been nominated three other times for Fizzy’s Lunch Lab, it’s especially exciting because this is the first nomination for a client project. We have been so fortunate to work on the Peg + Cat interactive content alongside our awesome partners at The Fred Rogers Company, 9ate7, and PBS KIDS. They’ve created a show with so much heart and vision and it has been inspiring to watch it unfold and contribute.

A huge thank you goes out to our awesome team at CloudKid. Over the last three years, we’ve produced A LOT of Peg + Cat content: a responsive website, 18 HTML5 games and activities, and the Big Gig app. It’s the result of countless hours by our artists, designers, animators, producers, and last but not least, our developers. Shout out!

The 2015 Daytime Emmys take place on April 24th in Los Angeles. Hopefully, we’ll have some good news to report though it will require taking down Elmo and Ellen. Not an easy task. In the meantime, our fingers are crossed.

Nick Pilot: Earth To Allen

We’re pretty psyched to announce that Nickelodeon has released our second digital pilot, Earth to Allen: Hunger Pains. The short follows 12-year-old Matty Mota as he tries to feed Allen (a tremendously incompetent intergalactic assistant) enough metal to stop his growling stomach from destroying the town. So many talented artists contributed to the development and production of the pilot, and we had an awesome time bringing the characters and world to life. Grab some popcorn and watch short HERE!

R.I.P. Soup2Nuts

For what’s starting to seem like a weekly occurrence, yet another U.S. animation studio has shut its doors, and this time it hit close to home. This week it was announced that Soup2Nuts, Boston’s largest studio, is folding after 22 years. “Soup” wasn’t a big fancy studio working on primetime TV shows or blockbuster movies, but much like Boston, it was a scrappy group that created brilliantly-written cult hits like Dr Katz and Home Movies, and later Wordgirl.

The studio gave hope to young writers, animators, illustrators, filmmakers, and actors who weren’t ready to move west and endure the bottomless talent pool in LA. Will Shepard, longtime Soup writer and producer, once likened it to the “minor leagues” (in the best possible way). The studio was a place that gave bright-eyed grads a chance to learn new skills, gain experience, and most importantly build confidence. If you watch cartoons today, you’ll see the names of many Soup alumni in the credits of well-known animated shows such as Breadwinners, Looney Toons, TRON: Legacy, Teen Titans Go!, Super Jail, Archer, and many many more.

The studio also helped launch the careers of successful writers, comedians, and creators. Loren Buchard (Bob Burgers), Brendon Small (Metalocapalyse), and John Benjamin (Archer) all got their start at Soup. Many up and coming comedians such as Louis CK, Maria Bamford, and Eugene Mirman got some of their first TV credits because of this relatively unknown animation studio in Watertown, MA. In many ways, Soup2Nuts quietly influenced “adult animation” for generations to come.

The studio’s closure is especially sad for me, because I got my start in animation at Soup2Nuts. I learned more about animation during my short two year stint than I ever thought possible. During that time, I wrote my first TV script, pitched my first ideas, and directed my first project. Soup gave me the confidence as an artist and a writer to start developing my own ideas and making them a reality. Above all, Soup fostered a community of collaboration. I worked with so many creative and talented artists and writers who taught me volumes about animation, art, design, production, writing, and comedy. These people helped shape my career and ultimately CloudKid (as well as other Boston-area studios such as Clambake and Planet Nutshell).

The Boston creative community didn’t just lose an employer. We lost a creative cheerleader, a mentor, a teacher, a lottery ticket, and a shot at the big leagues.

Detective Elmo

We’re super excited to announce Detective Elmo, our latest collaboration with Sesame Workshop and PBS KIDS. Connected to Sesame Street’s hour-long TV special, Cookie Thief, this mobile-friendly HTML5 game picks up where the TV special left off—a string of copycat thieves have begun stealing more art from The Museum of Modern Cookie Art. These cookie crooks must be stopped, and Elmo takes it upon himself to solve the crime! Help Elmo navigate through the museum at night, search for clues at the scene of the crime, and catch the art thieves. Check it out here!

Nick Pilot: BroDuel!

Oh pickle juice! We’re excited to announce that Nickelodeon has launched BroDuel, our Nick Digital short that we produced last summer. The short follows hyper-competitive brothers Dennis and Tad as their sibling rivalry leaves a wake of destruction at their new job. So many talented people helped out and we all had such a great time making it. We’re super proud of everyone who lent a hand! Stop what you’re doing and watch it HERE!

Keyframe Caddy Pro Support

CK_Blog_KeyframeCaddy_v01

Since launching Add-ons/tools in the Adobe Add-ons, we’ve been getting a flurry of emails from folks who have had trouble installing the software, learning how it works, and getting it to work flawlessly. While most are related to Adobe installation issues, we’ve been hard at work on improving the Keyframe Caddy Pro user experience. In doing so, there’s a new version in the Adobe Exchange that fixes the pesky “disappearing window” bug. We also created a series of handy materials—a tutorial video, a user guide with tips, tricks, and troubleshooting, as well as as sample Flash file so folks can use Keyframe Caddy with little to no setup. We hope the latest version and materials are useful for our current and future users, especially as we continue to refine our tools.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or tips regarding any of our tools, Add-ons, or libraries, feel free to reach out to us at support@cloudkid.com.

CloudKid Animates Segel’s Nightmares!

As huge fans of The Muppets, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and almost everything Jason Segel-related, we were thrilled when Random House asked us to produce four animated trailers for his upcoming book series, Nightmares!. Co-authored with New York Times Bestselling author, Kirsten Miller, the series follows Charlie and the bizarre nightmares that haunt him after moving into his stepmother’s house.

The trailers were a blast to produce and gave us the opportunity to translate the gorgeous art of Karl Kwansy into animation. The art style also challenged us to ditch our usual symbol-based Flash animation process and experiment with a more traditional style of “redraw” animation. The first trailer was released in August and the remaining three will rollout before Halloween.

Be sure to pick up a copy of Nightmares! at your local or online bookstore!

CloudKid 2.0

You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone… the times are a-changin’.

At the end of 2013, we decided to examine what CloudKid had come to represent. As a result, we felt that CloudKid was so much more than a cute rocket and bold colors. Not only had the branding been created before CloudKid was something tangible, it no longer reflected the diverse creative and technical work that has come to define the studio. We had evolved yet our branding had not.

So on the eve of our fifth birthday, we’re incredibly excited and proud to announce the new and improved CloudKid. The rebrand is about growing up. It’s about telling better stories, building better games, and making even more ambitious interactive experiences. It’s about taking bigger risks with clients to create content that exceeds the highest of expectations. It’s about capturing the incredible curiosity and passion of our team. It’s about being fearless while still having the time of our lives. It’s about adapting, growing, and evolving.

We’ve leveled up. We’re ready to roll up our sleeves and tackle anything that’s thrown at us. The future of CloudKid is exciting and we look forward to many more years of inspiring collaborations.